


Pas de Deux

by maktub



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Ballet, Dancing, F/M, The culmination of my obsession with dance movies and my love for everlark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 08:06:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5040646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maktub/pseuds/maktub
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katniss Everdeen has always loved dancing. But when an opportunity arises to reconnect with an old friend, the art of it all starts to mean a whole lot more to her. Written for the Day 3 prompt “Explosions”, and the final round of PiP.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pas de Deux

_Fifteen Years Ago_

 

“First!”

 

The rows of young girls snap into position, heels touching, toes pointed out, hands braced in front them.

 

“Second!”

 

Legs out, arms out, smiles plastered perfectly on their faces. Ms Trinket walks up and down the lines with her lips pursed, correcting as she passes.

 

“Third!”

 

Snap! It’s like an army of perfectly trained dolls, and even at eight years old Katniss Everdeen wants to roll her eyes at them all. But she holds the position, feet pointed out an angle that still makes her father cringe.

 

“Fourth!”

 

Arm _up_ , foot forward, the young girl eyes her position in the mirror, tries to find a flaw as Ms Trinket makes her way toward her. Fingers, knees, toes, elbows. She digs a tooth into her lip as the brightly dressed ballet teacher pauses in front of her.

 

“Tut, tut, Miss Everdeen, what have I told you about that bun! It’s like you’ve never even heard of hairspray!”

 

The girls around her snicker and she tries to blow the wispy bits from her forehead.

 

“Fifth!”

 

––––

 

Katniss hates lunch time more than anything. She can tolerate Ms Trinket in class, the snickers of girls behind hands as she’s told once again that her leotard is the wrong colour, or that her bun is incorrect, because in that room she’s dancing.

 

But out here in the cafeteria she doesn’t have that to hide behind.

 

It’s her first Dance Camp.

 

Her mother had always wanted to be a ballerina and if it was the only thing her maternal grandparents would ever do, it would be pay for Katniss’ dance classes.

 

So here she is, living out the failed dreams of her mother and the final hopes of her grandparents and she actually kind of enjoys it. She’s flexible and strong and when she pirouettes her way across a room and sees the satisfied smile of Ms Trinket she doesn’t feel different for once in her life.

 

She feels like, somewhere between the barre and the mirror, she’s actually found a place she belongs.

 

But then she walks into the cafeteria and the snotty Glimmers and Cashmeres of the world shove their trays on the seats beside them and tell her, _“Sorry, this seat’s taken”_ and laugh when she’s not quite out of earshot.

 

She’s frowns at the nutritionally balanced portions on her plate and wills herself not to cry because she misses Prim and she misses her Daddy and the woods and why does dancing have to involve so much…

 

“Hi!”

 

A toothy grin is the first thing she notices when she looks up. Then blue eyes, floppy blond curls.

 

“Can I sit here?” The boy says it a little shyly, like she might say no despite the five empty seats around her.

 

“Okay,” she mumbles.

 

“I’m Peeta,” he reaches a hand out and she frowns as she extends her own.

 

“Katniss.”

 

He grins again – did he ever really stop? – “That’s a nice name, Katniss.”

 

She finds herself blushing at the way he tests her name. It’s cute, she thinks to herself, he lisps a little over the ‘S’s just like her sister.

 

He does most of the talking for her, thankfully, asking about what the _girls_ classes are like and admitting she probably finds him weird for being a boy who does ballet – “ _Everyone at home does…”_ – but she says she thinks it’s nice and they’ll need nice, strong boys for the lifts one day and she has to bite her lip to stop from matching the ridiculously pleased grin he shoots her way.

 

“We’re gonna be friends,” he says as he grabs her empty lunch tray.

 

She smiles back at him.

 

 

She thinks she likes the idea.

 

––––

 

_10 Years Ago_

 

She’s thirteen and her body’s just started doing weird things. All the girls at Dance Camp gossip about it at nighttime in the rooms.

 

One proudly states that she hasn’t gotten her period yet and her ballet teacher is hoping it’ll stay that way as long as possible.

 

Katniss cringes under the covers, places her hands on her chest and feels the small buds that she never once thought about beginning to form. She wants them to go away.

 

–

 

“Katniss, ugh, I was worried you weren’t coming back this summer after last year,” Peeta wraps her into a hug and she tries to blink away the fact that he’s a good few inches taller than her now, that his voice is a bit squeaky, that when he hugs her and her head is pressed into his chest he smells like something she wants to remember.

 

“Ms Trinket can yell at me all she likes, Mellark, she’s not going to stop me dancing,” she pulls away with a wry smile, the previous moment’s thoughts forgotten.

 

He grins at her, “That’s what I like to hear.”

 

“Did you hear they’re bringing a modern teacher this year?” She asks after they’ve collected their food and started the arduous process of finding a seat.

 

“Yeah, but it’s an extra few hours a day that I was hoping to spend down at the lake,” Peeta nudges her side and points at a table in the distance.

 

“I guess,” Katniss picks at the undercooked vegetables on her tray.

 

“You should do it,” he says, looking over his shoulder to shoot her a smile, “You said last year you wanted to try modern.”

 

Her brow furrows, how the hell does he remember this stuff?

 

“Won’t you do it with me?”

 

Peeta sighs as they sit down, pushes his food around with a fork for a few seconds, “My teacher won’t let me, says it’ll ruin my technique, bad enough as it is.”

 

Katniss frowns again, she’s seen Peeta dance, he’s one of the best in the class. The end of camp performance usually has the older kids in the starring roles but last year, even at only twelve, Peeta was given some minor solo that got a huge round of applause.

 

She still remembers the way he’d blushed after Glimmer planted a kiss on him in congratulations after the show.

 

“You’re not –”

 

Peeta holds up a hand and smiles, “Go show them how much you rock, I’ll miss you down at the lake but you should come after.”

 

She puffs out her cheeks in frustration but nods.

 

“So, how’s the last year of your life been?”

 

–

 

She runs down to the lake for the last few hours of sunlight, grateful for the long summer days.

 

“Katniss!”

 

She has to squint to see that he’s waving from a pontoon floating about thirty metres out. She drops her towel by the shore and runs along the pier, diving straight into the water to join him.

 

As she pulls out of the water she makes sure to drip all over his warm, tanned skin, laughing as she does so.

 

“It’s amazing that the only time I get you to laugh is when you’re making me suffer,” he grouches, but she sees the hint of a smile on his lips.

 

“Guess what?”   
  
He looks up at her, shields his eyes from the last few hours of sunshine, “What?”

 

“I got the lead! In the modern show I got the lead!”

 

“What the hell!” 

 

He jumps up to grab her in a hug and the whole pontoon wobbles, others shout at them half-heartedly.

 

“That’s so amazing! I’m so proud!”

 

She smiles shyly and thanks him, but pride, or maybe something else, blooms in her chest with the way he looks at her.

 

She doesn’t give a crap what fussy old Ms Trinket thinks of her bun when she can make Peeta smile like that.   


––––

 

_Five Years Ago_

 

She looks across the room, fingers bouncing against her thigh, knees trembling.

 

Peeta catches her eye and winks, _you’ll be fine_ , she thinks he mouths. But her vision is blurring a little around the edges and she can’t be sure.

 

There’s never been so much pressure on one dance. A routine she knows so well that she sometimes worries her muscles will never move in another way.

 

But if she performs it well enough right now, she’ll be going to the dance programme at Juilliard and this whole thing might actually be worth it. All these years of blisters and sore feet and ice baths and aching muscles and tears and stress and performances and medals and trophies and hair pulled so tight across her forehead she’s sure she’ll be going bald by thirty.

 

She might actually have a _future_. Something she’s seen ripped from the people in her small hometown so many times it’s almost boring.

 

She’s made it to the final round of auditions and the sight of Peeta Mellark eases some of the tightness in her chest, makes her think she might actually be able to keep down the small breakfast she had that morning.

 

He strides across the room just before the boys and girls are to be separated, wraps an arm around her shoulder, he’s taller again, muscular again, every year he’s different and every year she’s surprised by it.

 

It’s when she’s tucked into his side, solid and firm and familiar in a room of strangers, that she feels herself take the first breath that’s made it all the way into her lungs.

 

“I missed you,” he murmurs into her ear, careful not to mess up her thoroughly set hair.

 

“You too,” she sags against him, allows her body a few moments of rest before it has to give everything it’s got.

 

“Maybe see you on the other side? We can get lunch in the city somewhere, I don’t have to be home until later.”

 

“That’d be nice,” she smiles up at him and it’s a bit wobbly, but he steadies her neck in his palm, kisses her cheek.

 

“You’ll be amazing, I’m sure of it.”

 

––––

 

_Dear Miss Everdeen,_

 

_We thank you for your application to Juilliard, however we regret to inform you that this year…_

 

She stops reading. Crushes the letter and tosses it in the bin.

 

Well fuck ballet. She never really liked it anyway.

 

––––

 

“Taking it from the top, this time everyone going full out!”

 

The beat starts, it’s heavy, pulsing. The entire class gets into position and Katniss crouches at the front so she can both watch everyone in the class and let them see themselves in the mirrors.

 

She can’t help the smile coming to her face watching as a room full of people commit themselves to a routine that she created. The choreography is certainly more complex, but that’s what this Wednesday class is for. Giving people in the studio a chance to do the moves Katniss is famous for.

 

She tells them her comments after it’s done, says good job, chats with the stragglers. A couple ask her for help with a particular move and she tries not to appear impatient, but she’d really like to close the studio and get home in time for the latest episode of her current guilty pleasure.

 

“That was a good one, Catnip,” Gale flicks her with his sweat towel and she doesn’t bother hiding the fact that she’s grossed out.

 

“Yeah? You seemed to have some trouble with those broncos, you know you’ve gotta arch your back right?”

 

She smirks and stretches her arms over her head, trying to ease the emerging tightness of her muscles. She knows she’ll be watching Netflix with a few heat packs tonight.

 

“Ha Ha, just wait ‘til next week when I’m taking this class and you’ll see exactly how many muscles you currently don’t have.”

 

Katniss rolls her eyes.

 

“Did you sort out those new enrollments?” She asks as she starts a quick mop up of the sweat off the floor.

 

She hears him call out from the back room, “Yep, all done, and we got an email from some director or producer guy from New York, wants to come down to the studio next week and have a chat after he watches a class.”

 

This piques her interest. A couple of youtube hits lately have brought attention to their little LA studio and work seems to be flowing their way.

 

“D’you remember his name?”

 

Gale emerges and disappears behind the reception desk, groans when he notices the computer’s already been shut down, “Cinna Something?”

 

They’ve both never heard of him.

 

She shrugs, “Well tell him yes, it can’t hurt, can you do the rest of lock up?”

 

She ignores the smirk he sends her way because he knows exactly why she’s in a hurry to leave, “Sure thing, Catnip.”

 

“I’ll be back tomorrow at three to set up for the after school classes, I’ll see you then!”

 

––––

 

The drive from the studio in North Hollywood to her tiny apartment in Echo Park takes the better part of forty minutes and requires her to drive down both Hollywood Drive and Sunset Boulevard.

 

She sighs and tries not to simply rest her forehead on the horn and blast her way through traffic. It’s the one thing she truly hates about L.A. If she could take her handful of square miles - her apartment, the local cafe where they know exactly what she wants in the morning, the studio, her favourite local hiking trails and maybe a few of the bars - well, if she could take them all and put them in some traffic-free sanctuary she’d think her life just about perfect.

 

“Get a fuckin’ move on you moron!”

 

Ah, the sweet sounds of that Angelino hospitality.

 

It’s almost eleven by the time she actually makes it to her bed and as much as she wants to open her laptop and rekindle last night’s Netflix romances, sleep overcomes her as soon as her head hits the pillow.

 

––––

 

Some days she wonders how what she does can actually be considered work. 

 

Teaching the school kids brings more laughter to her life than just about anything else. They can be frustrating as hell, but as soon as she’s in front of them marking routines or going full-speed to that week’s song request, it’s like a switch is flipped inside all of them.

 

She remembers that feeling. Some idea of importance that plants itself in your head, that tells you getting these steps right means someone out there will respect you.

 

The kids pick up routines like sponges.

 

In the last year, Katniss has found these are actually her favourite classes to teach.

 

“Miss Katniss,” Rue tugs at the wild frizz of her black hair, “Have you got a boyfriend yet?”

 

Not that she has favourites, but Rue would definitely be it.

 

A lot of days her dad is late to pick the girl up so she and Katniss sit on the steps out front and chat while Gale takes the beginner adult classes.

 

“As a matter of fact you nosey thing, it’s none of your beeswax,” she turns her nose up at the girl in jest.

 

“So that’s a ‘no’,” Rue laughs and dodges the the glare her teacher throws her way.

 

She lifts her arms up in surrender, “Hey, I’m just curious because a friend of mine is totally interested.”

 

“Unfortunately it’s illegal for me to date twelve year olds, but let him down gently for me okay?”

 

Rue shakes her head with a flush and leans back against the stairs.

 

“Who’s Cinna?”

 

Katniss raises an eyebrow, “How’d you hear about Cinna?”

 

The girl shrugs and purses her lips in a way that suggest she probably knows trade secrets and should definitely not be trusted. Katniss thinks it’s nice to know she’s not the only one who sucks at lying.

 

“He’s some bigshot from NYC who wants to talk to us about some work,” Katniss tries to act like it’s no big deal, but after googling the guy she’s feeling a bit intimidated and with him coming to the studio next week she’s wondering what on earth a guy like him wants with her.

 

“Does this mean you’re leaving?” Rue traces patterns over her thighs, the humid July air making it way too hot for tights.

 

“I highly doubt it, and if by chance he does want us to go out there I’ll make sure only the best are looking after the studio while we’re gone,” it’s unlikely but Rue looks like she could use the reassurance.

 

“Alright Rabbit, looks like you’re Dad’s here, see you tomorrow?”

 

The conversation seems forgotten as the girl rushes to car with some shout of confirmation over her shoulder that Katniss hardly catches.

 

––

 

Just after the start of the advanced Wednesday class, Katniss notices a man far too well-dressed to be a dancer walk in the front door and sit in one of the seats usually reserved for parents.

 

She tries to forget he’s there.

 

In a water break she notices Gale go over and introduce himself and thinks she should probably do the same, but she’s out of breath and sweaty and probably stinks and Gale looks like he’s doing just fine.

 

The routine Gale’s come up with this week seems especially complicated, seems to be designed to show off the best of their skills, the best of what they’ve done, and it’s not hard to imagine why.

 

So for the rest of the class she lets herself get lost in the sultry tones of Miguel and forgets all about the man and how much this feels like an audition.

 

––  


“Katniss Everdeen, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” his voice is smooth and warm and is somehow able to uncoil her twisted gut.

 

“Same to you,” her voice trails off as she shakes his hand, somewhat unsure to call him.

 

“I just go by Cinna,” he smiles at her, green eyes twinkling, “Think of me as a slightly cooler version of Madonna.”

 

“We’ve only just met and you’re already comparing yourself to the original Queen of Pop,” she avoids the glare Gale sends her way, she can practically already hear his judgemental thoughts, but Cinna just laughs.

 

“I like you.”

 

She almost wants to poke her tongue out at her partner.

 

“I’ve never been a man for small talk, so I’m going to cut to the chase,” Cinna crosses his legs and steeples his hands under his chin, takes a quiet moment to observe the pair seated across from him.

 

“As you may or may not be aware I’ve recently been appointed resident choreographer at New York City Ballet, and I’m hoping to add a somewhat,” he pauses, lips tilting into a half-smile, “ _different_ show to this year’s program and I want the two of you to come and help me.”

 

“You want us to work with ballet dancers?” Gale’s lips twist in disgust, he’s never made it a secret that he thinks ballet is a way for rich people to try and take dance away from those less fortunate.

 

“Yes, I do,” Cinna’s tone is forthright, as though it’s a perfectly reasonable request.

 

“Ballet and what we do are not just interchangeable,” Gale continues, “We’ve all trained for years to be good at this, but you wouldn’t expect us to just be able to pick up ballet in a day!”

 

“You are correct,” his voice remains steady, almost amused, his eyes flicker to Katniss’ to try and gauge her reaction but her face is for once not revealing the turmoil within, “I am not expecting this to be easy. That is why I am asking the people I perceive to be the best to help me train a group of professional ballet dancers to practically retrain their bodies.”

 

_The best_.

 

The words ring in the room for a moment. Katniss and Gale look at each other in silent communication. They can tell they’re both uncomfortable, but… _The Best?_

 

“How many in the show?”

 

It’s the first words Katniss has spoken since the introduction, she doesn’t really want to do this, she hasn’t thought about ballet since, well, since ballet didn’t think about her.

 

“It’ll be small, fifteen or twenty dancers, Peeta Mellark will be leading.”

 

Her breath catches in her chest. Some dark seed of regret. She hasn’t spoken to him since that final lunch… ignored his friend request when she decided to leave the entirety her ballet world behind her to get over the rejection.

 

“Who?” The question comes from Gale, and Katniss decides to feign the same ignorance, forces the fact that she knows this is not his first lead role on Broadway into some dark corner of her mind. The past is the past.

 

Cinna waves a hand, “It’s irrelevant but he’s capable and willing to learn, a natural leader who’ll help you get the rest of the cast in shape even as he’s learning himself.”

 

Something like pride swells in her chest.

 

Something like nausea too.

 

“How long would we need to be there?”

 

“Six months.”

 

They both release a long breath.

 

“I’m not asking you to make a decision now, but I need it soon, one week,” he starts stand, reaches out to shake their hands “I’ll have my assistant email you the pay-package and accommodation options so you’re fully informed.”

 

He hands Katniss a card, “Here’s my number. Call me when you’ve made a decision.”

 

––––

 

“So,” Katniss swirls a straw through her gin and tonic, “What do you think?”

 

It’s been five days since Cinna made his proposal and she’s probably read through the email pack a hundred times, part in disbelief and part trying to find enough reasons to say yes (if you pushed harder, she’d admit she meant reasons other than Peeta Mellark).

 

Gale leans back in his chair, fiddles with the label of his beer.

 

“We’d be idiots to say no,” he finally grumbles, a frown settles on his forehead.

 

Katniss nods, lips pressed together, she won’t be able to do this without him, she couldn’t say yes alone and her heart is thundering in her chest in the hopes that he really doesn’t want to be an idiot.

 

“Who’d look after the studio?”

 

He shrugs, “Thom, probably, the classes he teaches are popular, Seeder can manage the business side of things.”

 

“I think,” Katniss bites her lips, sips her drink for a long moment, “I think we should do it.”

 

Grey eyes flick to her own.

 

“Yeah,” he sags against the chair and looks around the bar in resignation, “But don’t expect me to be nice to those prissy princess ballerinas.”

  
The corners of her lips stretch up into a smile, “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

 

––––

 

A low whistle escapes Gale’s lips at their first step into the temporary apartment, “The NYCB has this on standby?”   


“No,” Cinna smiles, leaning against the black leather of the couch, hands deep in his pants pockets, “This is an investment of mine that I usually rent out as a holiday let.”

 

It’s a loft apartment in the Lower East Side, high ceilings, big windows, two bedrooms, far better furnished than Katniss could ever afford.

 

“It’s a bit far from the company, but I figure you’ll want the space every now and again.”

 

He points upward, a set of stairs leads to an loft-style bed, “One bedroom up there, one bedroom down the hall next to the bathroom.”

 

“I’ll take the one with the door,” Gale laughs and she groans.

 

But she looks up at the wooden beams above what will be her bedroom, the exposed brick on the far side. It mightn’t be the most private thing but she thinks she’s going to really like it.

 

“Kitchen, etcetera, I’m sure you two are capable enough to figure things out.”

 

He hands them both a key, tells them the location of the nearest supermarket, a few good restaurants, says “I’ll see you both in two days time, get settled for now, I’ve left a few subway maps on the kitchen bench,” and leaves.

 

“Well, fuck me,” Gale collapses into the couch and reaches for the remote.

 

“Hey idiot, I’m hungry, food first, TV later.”

 

––––

 

Two days later they are meeting Cinna at the Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side. He shows them the space they’ll be performing, the rehearsal areas.

 

Katniss tries not to freak out at how familiar this all is. How the last time she was here, just the other side of the square from where they stand, she was having lunch with Peeta and her future was still undecided.

 

“Let’s talk about the performance over lunch,” he says after the grand tour, “I know a nice, quiet place not far from here. Though I’m sure you two will have your favourites by the end of this year.”

 

She finds it weird to think that she’ll be here in this city until just after New Year. They’ll stay until the production begins in January, see the premiere, but after that their roles are no longer required. She can’t imagine this city in winter, blanketed in snow, colder than anything L.A. has seen the entire time she’s been there.

 

––––

 

“It’s essentially a reworking of West Side Story,” Cinna begins to explain after they’ve ordered and are well supplied with large mugs of black filter coffee, “And therefore essentially a reworking of Romeo and Juliet.”

  
Katniss nudges Gale’s side with her elbow, knowing that whatever face he’s likely pulling right now is not approving. The man across from her smiles that cool, collected smile she already finds so typically _Cinna_.

 

“It sounds lame, I know, but you’ll have to trust me,” he laughs, it’s a low, rumbling sound that reminds Katniss of her father.

 

“So instead of the Jets and Sharks it’s the Ballerinas and the Hip Hop Dancers?” Gale butts in, a level of sneer in his voice that tries (and fails) to stop you questioning the fact he knows the gangs in a Broadway musical.

 

Cinna purses his lips but she thinks it’s more to stop himself from laughing again, “Yes, that’s exactly what it is. And there’s a love story, a male from the ‘Hip Hop Dancers’,” he pauses, “I think we’ll have to come up with something better than that,” laughs, “Well, he falls in love with a ballerina but their love is forbidden, I’m sure you both get the picture. After this we will head to my office and I’ll show you the storyboard for the production and the dances we need choreographed.”

 

“Why not get actual hip-hop dancers to do those parts?” Katniss asks.

 

“The company doesn’t work that way, unfortunately, I did ask because I wanted the both of you to be in it but only dancers with NYCB perform in productions put on by NYCB,” he says with an air of nonchalance that doesn’t at all match the sudden tightening of her chest, the thud of her heart at the knowledge someone wanted her.

 

“Do they die? In the end? Or just the guy?” Gale asks, and she thinks to herself that she has to ask him exactly how many times he has watched West Side Story.

 

Cinna raises an eyebrow at him, “What do you think should happen?”

 

Gale crosses his arms over his chest and frowns, “‘M just wondering.”

 

“What about music? Is it all classical?”

 

Cinna turns to her, “It will be a mixture, classical for the ballet scenes, and we will use modern music for the rest, but no lyrics, mash-ups for the scenes with the lovers.”

 

The bell over the front door tinkles as it’s pushed open, “So what do you think?” but the question is lost on her because her eyes are fixed on the person… the _man_ that’s just walked through the door.

 

He looks over at them, sees Cinna, blue eyes light up, he sees her, something like confusion on his face.

 

“Ah Peeta,” Cinna diverts when he notices the location of Katniss’ distraction, “I’m glad you could make it to meet the choreographers.”

 

They both stand to greet him.

 

“This is Gale Hawthorne,” the two shake hands, brief introductions, a few pleased to meet yous, Katniss can hardly concentrate.

 

“And this is Katniss Everdeen.”

 

Peeta reaches out a hand, eyes bright.

 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Katniss.”

 

Ooft. Everything inside her freezes. He doesn’t remember her. Of course he doesn’t remember her. He’s a famous ballet dancer now. Probably has lots of friends at New York City Ballet. Just like always he was a popular kid. Why would he remember her?

 

“The same to you, Peeta.”

 

She says it cool, polite, if she’s a stranger to him than it’s the same.

 

Something flits across his face, eyebrows droop into a frown, he takes a deep breath, “You’re Katniss from Summer Dance Camp, right?”

 

She cocks her head, Katniss from dance camp, “I might be? There’s a lot of dance camps.”

 

He bites his lip and looks away from her, “Oh, okay, well I thought, um–”

 

The door opens again and in walks tall, leggy, slender blonde, “And this is Madge Undersee, who will be our other principal for the show.”

 

Introductions. Whatever.

 

Something cold and lonely has settled in the bottom of Katniss’ stomach and she tries to maintain a level of cordiality but she feels sick. _He didn’t remember her_. She only has herself to blame. She’s not a very memorable person.   


She looks at how comfortable Madge and Peeta are together. The way they laugh. She wonders if she’d gotten in if they would have stayed friends. Probably not, it seems.

 

At the end of the meeting Peeta and Madge disappear off to classes and he shakes her hand goodbye and she won’t meet his eyes because she hates how much she wants to hug him, how it feels like muscle memory.

 

They disappear off to Cinna’s office.

 

It’s time to do her job. She didn’t come for Peeta Mellark. She came for the work.

 

––––

 

The dancers show up to the first rehearsal in pointe shoes and Katniss realises this is going to be harder than she first thought.

 

“No leotards,” she says, “No buns. No hairspray.”

 

The twenty-odd dancers look around the studio, trying to figure out if this newcomer is seriously trying to change habits perfected over more than fifteen years.

 

“When you come into this studio to dance with me you wear sneakers, you wear t-shirts, you wear your track pants,” she looks around the room, trying to learn their faces, “I don’t want to see another pointe shoe until we start work with Cinna, ya hear me?”

 

There’s some nervous laughter, a sound of general understanding. Katniss looks over Peeta just like she has everybody else – a stranger, another face to learn, another person to properly meet. She’s on to the next face before he even has the chance to smile at her.

 

Gale moves away from the wall, arms folded across his chest, expression stern. He towers above Katniss where he stands next to her, at least a foot taller, “This isn’t going to be easy, but we’ve taught people less coordinated than you, so if we all work hard I think by the end of it we’ll have something great.”

 

She wants to raise an eyebrow at him, but she realises, looking out at this group of ballet dancers, that there’s something eager in their eyes, something curious and willing and maybe a little nervous, this is more than just a challenge for Gale. It’s an opportunity to show people what he’s really made of.

 

She glances in the mirror on the side wall, catches Peeta’s eye, looks away.

 

“Alright get outta here and come back tomorrow dressed and ready.”

 

––––

 

The second rehearsal goes better in that at least they _do_ something. But it’s like watching the Queen at a pie-eating contest. They can do the moves, they listen, they’re professional but everything is too prim.

 

“For this hour I want you to forget standing up straight, forget that perfect posture, legs out shoulder-width, knees a little bent,” but they all end up in plié, backs perfectly straight, hands poised, and she doesn’t know whether she’s trying to stifle a laugh or a sigh.

 

They go through a routine they usually teach their kids just to get the basics down, the fundamentals. But it doesn’t feel as fun, the faces are serious, concentrated. There’s no rhythm, no _nothing_. When she looks at them she doesn’t feel a thing.

 

“Mellark,” she says after Gale’s asked him to perform a set of moves, “If you’re not going to put any life into this then I’m wasting my time.”

 

She gets a thrill out of the way his face falls a little, hates herself that it feels like this is the only way she’s going to get an emotion out of him. Why couldn’t he have just remembered her?

 

But he tries harder, works harder than everyone else in the room.

 

She finds herself getting caught on the way he bites the corner of his lip when he’s trying to figure something out, the water that dribbles down his chin when he guzzles from the bottle, the sweat-soaked hair that clings to his forehead. She wants to pretend these are things she never noticed before, that he’s not at all the boy she once knew.

 

It’s a lie.

 

Katniss Everdeen remembers everything about him.

 

––––

 

By the end of the first week she feels drained. Three hours of class in the morning. Lunch. Three hours of figuring out choreography with Gale. Two hours of performing said sequences and workshopping them with Cinna. 

 

Her body hasn’t worked out this much in years.

 

She’s hardly seen the city. Just a few of the local take-out places because neither she nor Gale have had the energy to cook.

 

She’s started watching some British drama on Netflix and realises that the characters on it are the only new friends she’s made since she arrived.

 

“Gale?” She sags into the sofa and dips her hand into the bowl of buttery popcorn he’s made, “How the fuck do you get away with eating so much junk?”

 

He laughs, “These abs need something to live on.”

 

––––

 

“This week we’re going to start teaching the first dance so I need you all to split up into your groups,” Cinna calls out across the room, “I’ll take ballet on the other side of the room and Katniss and Gale will take Street on this side.”

 

Katniss finds herself entranced as she watches Cinna take control. He has a presence about him, something that demands to be heard without ever talking over you.

 

“The three of us will demonstrate,” he holds a hand over his heart, “And I’ll have to ask you to forgive me, it’s been a long time since I looked as good as all of you in a leotard.”

 

The class laughs but Katniss thinks he still looks as though he could be performing any night of the week. Ballet dancers don’t last long on the stage and she thinks he’s in his forties, but after watching him dance for the last week she could be convinced he still belonged on the stage as much as anyone in this room.

 

“There are sections that won’t work with so few but we’ll block it out and explain as we go.”

 

As they take their positions Katniss suddenly realises she’s nervous. With the exception of classes she hasn’t truly performed in front of these people. What if they think she’s crap? That she has no business whatsoever to be here teaching them?

 

She’s looking at the floor as she walks but when she looks up it’s straight at Peeta and it’s the longest she’s held his gaze in five years. He sends a thumbs up, a crooked smile, and she turns away as the music starts.

 

She can do this.

 

Once it’s time for her to begin moving she doesn’t think about anyone else in the room. These are her steps, her creation. She finds herself falling into it, her hips swaying in time with the racing beat of the music. Even when the violins join in, crashing their way through the drums to establish their place she thumps her feet and moves her body and stays strong.

 

Gale bounds across the front in a series of tucks and jumps as he and Cinna explain a mock fight scene as the two groups confront each other for the first time.

 

It’s exciting to watch and once it’s done the room erupts into applause and she feels breathless and proud.

 

She risks a glance at Peeta and he’s staring straight at her. He’s clapping and there’s something like admiration on his face but his blue eyes are dark. She has to force herself to turn away.

 

Gale saunters up next to her, “So who wants to learn to how to jump?”

 

––––

 

“Next group,” Katniss pauses the music and sets it back to the start of the song, waves a dismissive hand at the group of three who just finished, “I want to see you all hitting the beat, I need a bit of ferocity from you, you’ve just had a run in with your worst enemies.”

 

She presses her finger and thumb to her forehead and tries to rub out the headache that’s pressing against the edges of her skull. She catches Gale’s eye in the mirror and he tilts his head in a question.

 

She’s stressed. The more involved she gets in this project, the more she gets to know Cinna, the dancers, the more she realises that she really wants this to work. She’s demanding perfection and doesn’t know if she can deliver it herself.

 

Her fists ball up at her sides as a shudder of frustration runs along her arms, down to her toes. She needs to burn off this feeling, this anxiety.

 

“I’ll do it with this group,” she’s said it before she’s realised who the next group are. Peeta’s standing in the centre of the floor, two of his friends, a big guy named Cato who looks like he just walked off a viking ship and a lithe red-head called Annie.

Katniss was surprised when Annie had been assigned to this group, she looked far too gentle for the role. But more than any of the other girls she was starting to get the hang of the movements.

 

Peeta catches her gaze, blue eyes steely in the grey light filling the room through the large windows. She feels a shudder again, prickling along her skin. She knows it’s still frustration but she’s not sure if it’s the same kind. Something hot settles low in her belly and she holds his gaze for a second longer before turning to the mirrors.

 

She’s desperate to rid herself of the feeling.

 

“Gale?”

 

The music starts. Some pulsing beat.

 

“I want you to give me everything,” she says the words into the mirror. The group behind her nods, stretches and settles into their starting position.

 

When they start to move she pushes everything clouding her head out of the way. She succumbs to the motions, her body moving before she is able send out conscious thought.

 

In the mirror she sees the group. Cato is just out of time, missing the hits by a quarter of a beat. She grits her teeth. Annie’s getting all the moves, but she still looks like doll, too sweet.

 

She focuses on Peeta. Their gazes run into each other in the mirror. She holds it. He’s doing it with her. They’re moving together and he looks angry, ready to rip something apart.

 

The heat in her belly ignites into a flame that makes her muscles work harder. Her gaze flits to his hips as they roll, through his tight, white shirt she can see his abs tense in time with music.

 

She closes her eyes but still imagines him moving with her. Just behind her. She swears she feels his breath on her neck.

 

She’s doomed.

 

––––

 

After the last session of the day, she and Gale are packing up their bags to go home when Madge gives a polite cough behind them.

 

“The cast are all heading out to a bar, since it’s Friday,” she flits a lidded gaze at Gale, blue eyes bright under perfectly thick, black lashes, “We were wondering if you’d both like to join us?”

 

Gale hikes the strap of his bag over his shoulder and without even sparing Katniss a glance he answers a definitive ‘Yes’ for the both of them.

 

Katniss shoots a brief glare in his direction, but something about Madge’s pleased smile - one that is directed at her too - makes her think that maybe for once Gale’s dick-brain made a good decision.

 

She looks at what madge is wearing, a nice-enough black wrap-dress and a pair of flats. She looks down at her nikes and track pants and the tight crop top over the breasts that she’d never had as a ballerina.

 

“Do I need to change?”

 

Madge flits a gaze over her, but it doesn’t feel judgemental, Katniss thinks she might even like the princess.

 

The blonde turns quickly and shouts out, “Annie? You still have those spare jeans in your locker?”

 

The redhead pokes her head around the door, glances at Katniss, “Yep!”

 

Madge turns back with a smile, “There, you’ll be fine with those.”

 

––––

 

Ballerinas apparently know the locations of all the best bars in the city. Katniss and Gale had looked at each other with raised eyebrows as they’d been directed down some dark alley and up a staircase behind a trashcan.

 

But then a bouncer had been asking for IDs and a high-ceilinged, brown-brick loft bar had revealed itself after a trip in an elevator. Views of the city sprawled out beneath them and dark booths with dim lighting were already filled with the smiling, perfect faces of the NYCB’s finest.

 

Madge asked them what they both wanted, insisted the first round was on her, and directed them over to the biggest booth.

 

Katniss had felt somewhat underdressed in terms of skin exposure when she’d first walked in. But as she walked to the table and noticed the way Peeta’s eyes lingered on the exposed flat of her stomach, the curve of her breasts, the small of her waist as it descended into the black skinny jeans Annie had leant her… Well she didn’t regret it anymore. In fact she was beginning to get the distinct feeling that Peeta was of the opinion that she was severely overdressed.

 

His eyes moved to hers.

 

She smirked and sat next to Cato and Marvel, across the table from his hungry gaze.

 

He may not have remembered her. But the new her was attractive to him. She felt the power of his obvious lust for her seeping into her skin. This, she could work with. Something other than resentment.

 

––

 

Ballerinas apparently also knew how to party. Or maybe it was just New Yorkers. They’d all stayed at the bar until close to four in the morning.

 

She’d actually managed to talk to most of the dancers, learn a few more names. They’d started talking about dancing and the production until Madge had announced a blanket rule of no work talk.

 

She thinks Madge is her favourite. Even with the hopelessly unsubtle questions regarding Gale’s relationship status and the hot looks she’d noticed passing between the two of them.

 

But they actually talked. And got along.

 

And it wasn’t anything like Katniss had expected after their first meeting.

 

“I used to be so shy,” Madge had announced as they’d waited in line for the bathroom together, “But then I met my family -” she gestured in the general direction of the rest of the cast, “And I suddenly didn’t need to be shy anymore.”

 

Katniss’ lips had tilted in a smile.

 

“I hope you’ll let us adopt you into our family, Katniss.”

 

Something caught in her throat as she looked up the blonde, a sincere smile on the other girl’s lips.

 

So later, when she’s lying in bed debating watching an episode of TV or just falling asleep, she thinks back on those words and feels something warm bloom in the general region of her chest.

 

Family.   


She tastes the word.

 

She thinks she likes the idea.

 

––––

 

Whatever heat she’d thought Peeta had been directing her way that night at the bar, it all seemed to have cooled off by work on Monday. The looks he’d send her way felt like ice prickling her skin.

 

Fuck this, she thinks to herself, just before issuing a harsh warning in his general direction that he’s just _not getting it._

 

Her jaw clenches. Something clicks up near her ear.

 

Cato’s behind _again_.

 

Gale lays a hand on her shoulder but she shrugs it off.

 

After class, Peeta shoulders past without even a glance in her direction.

 

What the fuck.

 

“Catnip?” Something like fear sounds in Gale’s voice and when she looks at him for a moment she’s sure she’d be able to rip a man’s head straight off his shoulders.

 

“I need to get the fuck out of here,” something dawns in his expression and she’s so grateful that they have the sort of the relationship where he understands her need for not giving out answers.

 

“I’ll take the classes for the rest of the afternoon by myself. Go cool off.”

 

––

 

She walks almost the entire length of Ninth avenue and still feels like she has energy to burn, so she pulls out her phone and finds the nearest dance studio, craving some kind of surrender.

 

She wonders sometimes how she got to be in a position to direct others when she hates standing up in front of people, hates speaking words at all.

 

Following the direction on her phone she winds up at the reception desk asking when the next class will be.

 

The man looks up her from the desk with some kind of mischief glittering in his green eyes, lips curling into a smile, “You’re in luck gorgeous, I’m taking the next class in exactly five minutes.”

 

She’d normally roll her eyes at such smarmy charm, but something about this guy makes her feel at ease.

 

“Outfit?” She gestures at what she’s wearing, asking if it’s appropriate.

 

He stands up and leans over the desk, takes his time to appreciate her, then he throws a wink at her as he says, “Perfect.” Her lip curls and he grins.

 

“I’m Finnick,” he reaches out for her hand, kisses her knuckles, “It’s a pleasure to have you in my studio.”

 

She laughs, feels the stress melting off her, “Katniss.”

 

“I know who you are, Miss Everdeen,” he throws an arm over her shoulder and guides her into the studio.

 

People stretching around the room don’t even try and hide the curiosity on their faces as she passes.

 

Finnick reaches the front of the room and unlaces his sneakers, exchanging them for a pair of high heeled boots that make Katniss’ ankles hurt in anticipation of near-certain breakage.

 

He looks up at her from the floor as he tugs the laces tight, a smirk spreading over his very bronze skin, “And after this, you’ll most certainly know who I am.”

 

–

 

There’s a sheen of sweat that feels like relief on her skin and though she can hardly lift her feet with each step home from Finnick’s class, she feels like she has more energy than she can remember having for weeks.

 

Men dancing in heels. The thought makes her smile stupidly at the ground. Certainly something she’d never thought she’d see.

 

Okay, she thinks. I can do this.

 

––––

 

“Hey, um,” Peeta tugs at the waves at the nape of his neck, his eyes a little glazed and she wonders if all ballet dancers are lightweights, or if he just has a special knack for it.

 

_Cheap date_ , the thought flits across her mind and she’s grateful for the darkness to hide the blush rising on her cheeks.

 

Friday nights at some very cool bar in the vicinity of the NYCB studios has become somewhat of a tradition for the cast. After a month of them she has to pinch herself because she thinks she’s actually made friends.

 

Well.   


Except Peeta.

 

Up until this moment when he’d managed to corner her leaving the bathroom she doesn’t think he’s spoken a word to her since that first day.

 

He draws back and leans against the wall, as though aware the width of him was taking up any chance for her to escape.

 

Something settles on his face when he seems to realise she’s staying.

 

For Katniss, anytime she’s had more than what is apparently her knew baseline awareness of his existence, her gut has twisted uncomfortably.

 

But for once there’s something other than that cool expression he’s apparently so good at.

 

He smiles and her heartbeat skids on the warmth of it.

 

“I think we got off on the wrong start somewhere,” his lips tilt. Somewhere, she thinks, this particular somewhere wasn’t their start.

 

“But I think you’re at least my favourite dance teacher,” he ducks his head and for once she’s thankful she’s so short because she manages to see the way his bottom lip gets caught under his teeth.

 

“And anyway, sucking up aside,” she holds the laughter in her chest with a vice-grip, she wants to, _needs_ to hear this, “I think I’d quite like to be friends with you.”

 

There’s something about the way he says the word _friends_. Hesitant. Carefully placed lightness.

 

She wonders if he really means it.

 

She looks in his eyes, the pupils fat in the dim light of the bar, kind of hopes he doesn’t.

 

“Okay.”

 

He smiles.

 

Oh god.

 

––––

 

Cinna takes her and Gale out for lunch every Sunday to discuss the previous week and plan the next. It’s hardly ever places she can afford and she’s never been allowed to pay anyway.

 

The Sunday following what in her head has been termed _The Truce_ , Gale’s a bit under the weather so she meets Cinna alone.

 

“This is a personal favourite of mine,” he says as he guides her to a table overlooking the street, “Just the right combination of people watching and privacy.”

 

She’s not sure if she’s ever been very interested in people watching, but as Cinna points out things she’d never have noticed, she thinks she’s just never been very good at it.

 

Boyfriend about to break up with his girlfriend.

 

Recently widowed woman enjoying things she never had before.

 

One business partner about to screw over the other.

 

“What do you see in me?”

 

He sits back in his chair, folds his arms across his chest, “First, that you already regret asking me that question.”

 

She laughs because it’s true, trails her fork through the remnants of her lunch.

 

A silence settles over them and she feels the nervous tremble of approaching truth in her fingers and her knees.

 

“You never let yourself have what you really want, Katniss.”

 

She furrows a brow.

 

Cinna smiles and she understand how they can be called cryptic.

 

“One day, you’ll realise it’s okay to let go,” he leans forward and holds her gaze, “It doesn’t always mean losing.”

 

––––

She gets to the studio early the next day to stretch before class. The sunlight is crisp in the morning. The angle of it through the windows cuts hard lines across the wooden floor, the dust in the air forming strange light boxes.

 

The music she puts on is slower, something to ease out the lengths of her limbs.

 

In the mirror she sees parts of herself ignite as they pass through the morning light. Bright white against the dark olive of her skin. Her hair is tied up in a knot on the top her head, black strands fall loose as she moves.

 

After while she closes her eyes. Works through the steps.

 

There’s a cough at the door.

 

She opens her eyes and freezes. Peeta stands half in the light and the glint of sun turns his hair almost white, eyelashes near golden. She thinks he looks like living marble, all lines and strength and she wonders what his skin would feel like under her fingertips - cold?

 

“What’s that dance?”

 

The music hits the final bars and loops to the beginning.

 

Instead of speaking she curls a finger at him.

 

He drops his bag by the door and she can’t help but notice that every time he clenches his fists the muscles of his arms bulge outward. She didn’t do much science in school but she remembers looking through some anatomy textbooks for dance and she wonders how many muscles she’d be able to name as they ripple under his skin.

 

She starts dancing and watches to see how he follows along in the mirror. It’s probably unfair but the moves are simple, calm, and her throat feels far too tight to be able to manage words. She needs him just to follow her lead.

 

The first time through he just sort of does everything by quarters, takes steps in the same directions as her.

 

But by the third repeat he hardly needs to look at her.

 

But damn does she wish he wouldn’t stop.

 

––––

 

She gets a text from Madge one weekend asking if she wants to join them on a picnic in Central Park.

 

It’s almost impulse to reply with some half-hearted _thanks, but no thanks_ , because a picnic in Central Park is really not her kind of thing.

 

But then Gale decides they both need fresh air and a little sunshine and she tries not to roll her eyes at how unsubtle the two of them are.

 

“You could go alone, y’know,” she grunts as he starts to drag her out the door, “Then you won’t have to feel embarrassed every time you try and flirt.”

 

He stops suddenly and turns to her, crosses his arms over his chest. She forgets sometimes the largeness of her best friend.

 

No words are exchanged but the visual argument they have for only a handful of seconds is enough for her to know she won’t be bringing up the implied flirtationship between Miss Prima Ballerina and King of the Streets ever again.

 

“Fine,” she tugs a bag over her shoulders, “But you’re paying for the strawberries.”

 

––

 

These people are weird.

 

They play with a frisbee in the park. Take off their shoes and run barefoot on the warm ground.

 

She wonders if any of them have ever actually been in the wild. She thinks of the days when her father was alive and they’d go hiking in the back woods. He knew the trails as though the lines in his palms were really a map.

 

She remembers the first time she shot a deer and her father had carried the beast the entire way home over his shoulders. They’d eaten venison for weeks but it’d taken him almost two days to be able to walk again.

 

“Penny for your thoughts?”

 

She squints up into the sun. It’s Peeta. He’s rolled up the cuffs of his jeans and taken his socks off. The short sleeved henley fits tight across his shoulders and pecs and she knows she really needs to stop thinking about these sorts of things.

 

She shrugs though. Not really up for a walk down memory lane with Peeta Mellark. One summer they’d been friends and her father was alive. The next they’d been friends and her father was dead.

 

Dance was really the only thing she had that didn’t remind her of her father. It was a mother thing. Well, really a grandparent thing.

 

She doesn’t remember if she even told Peeta her father had died.

 

He stands awkwardly for a moment before settling down beside her on the tartan blanket. He leaves an appropriate amount of distance but it feels uncomfortable.

 

It’s like her body is craving his closeness, the vulnerable recesses of her mind not quite okay with both physical and emotional distance.

 

She leans forward to grab something to eat, asks if he wants some. And if, when she sits back down, she winds up half a foot closer, it’s most definitely an accident.

 

“I didn’t know frisbee was such a big deal,” she says as she bites into a delicious cinnamon cookie from one of the many batches Madge had made for the occasion. She tries to spot the blonde to send her praise but finds her conspicuously absent from the immediate vicinity.

 

“It gives all us dancers a chance to prove we actually have some hand-eye coordination.”

 

She laughs, “What? Leaping across stages in leotards doesn’t give you enough man cred?”

 

Peeta nudges her side, a smirk settled on his lips, “Play nice.”

 

The words come out a little deep, a little husky. She takes a large bite of the cookie just to stop herself from doing something stupid.

 

There’s laughter in his eyes and she wonders if he knows the effect he has.

 

––––

 

Friday bar night. Long week. Drinks, _please_.

 

Peeta places a cocktail in front of her and damn she’s not going to question it, or the fact that she’d agreed to stop mixing drinks at age twenty-two because the hangovers are _not worth it_.

 

“Highly recommended from the bartender,” he sips one himself and she knows there’s another man-cred joke somewhere inside of her but this cocktail is fucking delicious and she can hardly fault him from wanting it too.

It’s Cato’s birthday on Saturday so he picked the venue. It’s some gritty basement joint that makes everyone feel mildly claustrophobic. The music’s too loud to have group conversations so she winds up exchanging words into ears with Peeta beside her.

 

Something about the way his breath falls across her neck every time he speaks has every nerve ending in her body lighting up. She’s grateful for the sweater over her top because she’s sure her nipples would have something to say about the sound of his voice as well.

 

It’s nice though. Since The Truce she thinks she’s actually (re-?) become friends with Peeta. And he’s funny. And nice. And all the shit she tries really hard not to think about because two months in means four months left and something about him doesn’t scream One Night Stand.

 

“So how are you enjoying New York?” He asks as he drops in next to her with a third round of cocktails.

 

She shrugs, “It’s a lot easier to get around than L.A.”

 

He narrows his eyes at her, “I think literally everyone in the world knows that.”

 

“Literally everyone?”

 

He pokes her side and she laughs. His arm ends up on the back of the couch around her shoulders and her breath catches in her throat.

 

She realises that his whole body is turned towards hers, that she’s turned towards him. It feels beyond intimate and she feels herself start to freak, scramble for a safe conversation topic.

 

“So what are your brothers up to these days? Still wrestling champs?”

 

Oh fuck. It’s one of those moments where she wishes she could reach into the air and shove the words back in her throat.

 

He leans back, brows furrow.

 

“Katniss? I thought you said you didn’t remember me?”

 

She feels that same nausea she felt two months ago when he reached a hand out to her. She decides her best defence is a good offence and clenches her fists by her thighs and looks into his eyes.

 

“How - I -” so much for words. He starts to say something but she realises he looks almost mad and she can’t have that because _she_ is the hurt one, the forgotten one.

 

“I remember everything about you, Peeta,” there’s a crack in her voice and she already hates herself, “You were my only friend at dance camp for ten years and the first thing you did was introduce yourself? Forgive me for not wanting to be the heartbroken tag-along who didn’t leave enough of an impression to be remembered.”

 

Before he has the chance to reply she shoves her way past him and makes a beeline for the exit.

 

She catches sight of Gale leaning heavily over Madge in some dark corner and is glad because there are some walks you have to take alone.

 

She’s halfway down the street when she hears her name echoing off the tall stone buildings around her.

 

“Wait!”

 

She’s determined to keep going. The last thing she needs to add to her list of embarrassing things that happened tonight is crying in front of Peeta Mellark.

 

His legs are longer and in no time he’s gripping her shoulders and spinning her around to face him.

 

“Katniss, god,” she feels his fingers dig a little into her skin and tries to focus on the spot over his shoulder, “It was a joke. A bad joke, apparently. Of course I knew who you were. I think I brushed my teeth five times that morning, not to mention how many times I changed my shirt.”

 

She bites her lip. Is this real?  


“I tried to get in contact with you years ago, on Facebook? And I figured the whole ‘hello, stranger’ thing and,” he trails off, ducks down to try and catch her eyes, “Fuck, Katniss, I’ve spent the years since the last time I saw you wondering if we’d ever get the chance to meet again.”

 

A silence settles over them. Just the look in his eyes to convey exactly how sorry he is.

 

His grip on her shoulders loosens. She doesn’t want to run anymore.

 

 

Her back is against the wall and he’s kissing her, hands cupping her cheeks and her jaw as he licks his way into her mouth. She’s too short. She hops up and wraps her legs around his waist, grips her forearms behind his neck.

 

The sound of a car horn pulls them apart and it’s only now that she realises that they’re both kind of drunk and she really doesn’t want to let go. She looks to her left, the alley way beside the bar and tugs at the collar of Peeta’s shirt.

 

“Please,” she whispers the words into his skin.

 

With a grunt he carries her in the darkness and then reestablishes his assault on her lips.

 

Untangling her arms from around him, she reaches down to the button of his jeans and deftly unzips them. Reaches her hand into his briefs. God the feel of his lips on her neck, behind her ear. She keens into the air and he tries to capture the noises.

 

She grips his cock. Swipes a thumb over the tip.

 

“Sh-it,” he places one strong arm against the wall, groans into her shoulder, uses the other to tug at her own jeans.

 

He pulls them just far enough so that he can palm her ass, slip his long fingers under her panties - she regrets picking the plain black, thinks of the one lacy pair she owns. _Next time_ , oh please let there be a next time.

 

When he reaches into her front, lets his fingers slip between her folds, she wants to scream. He finds her clit in moments and swirls over it. She undulates against the feel of him. The roughness of his palm against her belly feels so good she has to bite her lip to hold the pleasure at bay.

 

There’s so much more to come. She feels it in her bones. In the way her toes and her fingertips tingle as he delves deeper, inside of her, as he grunts dirty things into her ear. How fucking good she feels. How wet she is for him. How - _oh fuck_ \- much he’s thought about this. How much he wants her.

 

“I want you too,” her legs are starting to go numb with the effort of gripping his waist, “Fill me up, Peeta, I need you.”

 

She’s dropped to the ground, flipped, hands press against the wall as he tugs her ass back towards him.

 

She hears the rip of a condom wrapper and has to reach one hand down to cup herself.

 

He pulls the hand away, “No touching.” It’s practically a growl.

 

Then he’s inside her, his body aligning over the top of hers. She gasps as he thrusts all the way, chokes on her own breath.

 

Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Like a prayer into the night sky.

 

He kisses the junction between her shoulder and neck, sucks on the skin.

 

The fingers of one hand curls through hers against the wall, the other reaches around to ground out circles against her clit.

 

She feels tears pool in the corner of her eyes from the intensity of it all. The feeling of being so thoroughly surrounded, so thoroughly possessed.

 

He thrusts inside her, “I want you to come so bad.”

 

His voice is almost animalistic. She wishes she could see his face but worries that it might almost be too much to handle.

 

“I am – I’m coming!”

 

She bites his bicep where it cuts across her shoulder just to try and keep the noise down.

 

He reaches down and grips her hips, a few final rapid thrusts, pace erratic, and she can feel the way his thighs are tensing behind her own as he comes.

 

“Holy fuck,” she sags against the wall. A giggle slips out of her lips as she tugs up her jeans, watches him fall against her.

 

He kisses her lips. Soft. Sweet.

 

“That was –”

 

Her phone rings in her pocket, loud and obnoxious and totally moment ruining. The caller ID says Gale and she knows she’d better answer in order to prevent a search party.

 

“Catnip? Where you at?”

 

She struggles to answer because Peeta’s started nipping at the skin of her shoulder, is tugging the sweater aside so he can place kisses on the swells of her breasts.

 

“Um,” she shoves the blond head away but he moves to kneel in front of her, “Just needed some fresh air.”

 

Peeta has them unzipped after all the hard work she went to to redress and she shoots a glare at him that is met only with hooded eyes and a tongue pressed against the outside of her underwear.

 

This man is going to be the death of her.

 

“Well I’m coming out. Madge isn’t feeling too well so I’m going to take her back to our place, are you coming?”

 

She wonders exactly what unwell means but realises that there’s no escaping the fact that if she doesn’t get a move on Gale will find her in far too compromising a position.

 

She pushes Peeta’s head away again, not without an unhealthy amount of reluctance.

 

“Yeah, yeah I’m um, coming.”

 

Something feral passes across Peeta’s face and she thinks she’s going to need a long, cold shower if she’s going to have any chance of functioning again.

 

“See you in five.”

 

She hangs up the phone and hurries to zip herself back up before she decides to learn exactly what Peeta can accomplish in five minutes.

 

“I’m sorry, I’ve gotta go, I’ll, um I’ll see you.”

 

He stands and kisses her one more time. She feels breathless when he pulls away.

 

“Okay,” he says. She leans forward. Kisses him again. “Okay.”

 

She makes it out front to meet Gale. As the three of them get in the cab, she looks back into the alley just in time to see Peeta looking straight at her. She resists the urge to blow him a kiss.

 

––––

 

There’s something about the feeling of a freshly fucked body that has her Saturday morning feeling especially luxurious. Katniss stretches across her bedspread, grips the wood of the headboard to force some feeling into the length of her muscles.

 

Holy fuck. She fucked Peeta Mellark. In a dirty back alley.

 

She can’t help but smirk at the thought.

Pottering around the apartment in nothing more than a old t-shirt of her dad’s and a pair of boyshorts, she’s mildly unimpressed when Madge appears in the kitchen doorway looking almost exactly as she feels.

 

They both freeze for a moment in their respective states of undress. Madge blinks and then starts to laugh. It’s joyful and light and whatever awkwardness had settled over Katniss seems to ease with the sound of it.

 

“What do you say you and I go and have brunch somewhere and leave that bear to fend for himself for breakfast?”

 

Katniss shuts off the coffee machine, “Sure. As long as you promise to never call Gale a bear in front of me again…” she makes a face that has the blonde giggling, “There are some visuals better left unimagined.”

 

––––

 

Monday has some kind of weird giddy feeling settling low in Katniss’ gut as she makes her way to the studio in the morning. She tries not to smile because so far each one has had Gale side-eying her like she recently admitted a desire to become a serial killer.

 

She’s warming up when she practically feels his entrance into the room. Something about the broadness of his body - the shoulders she remembers clinging to - and the fact that every word out of his mouth is treated like gold causes a shift in the atmosphere when he’s around.

 

She wonders if her eyes could actually roll out of her head. Even her own thoughts are making her feel a bit queasy with their cheesiness.

 

She turns to him though, unable to resist the temptation. The smile he shoots her way is… Not what she expected. It’s awkward. Stilted. Doesn’t reach his eyes.

 

She waves and feels like an idiot.

 

He nods.

 

 

With a duck of his head away from her gaze he manages to make the room seem about fifteen degrees cooler. The smile she’d been trying so hard to contain settles into a straight line.

 

“I want everybody to warm up well this morning,”

 

Maybe it’s childish. But she wants to destroy the feeling of his body on hers and she thinks a bit of mutually assured destruction might be just the thing. She tries to catch his eye. One last chance, she thinks. He looks away from her gaze in the mirror.

 

“And I’ll know the people who walk out of here at the end of the day are the ones who didn’t work hard enough.”

 

––––

 

“Catnip, I think you owe me a bubble bath after that.”

 

The two of them are sprawled on the couch in front of Netflix, alternating hot packs with cold packs on as many body surfaces as they can handle.

 

Katniss grimaces. She hates this show but she’s not sure if she has enough energy to lift her arm and get the remote.

 

“The ‘creamy candy bubble bar’ from LUSH is my favourite, for your reference,” he says just as another gush of blood spurts across the TV screen.

 

“Noted,” she grunts. She should probably apologise. Gale definitely did not sign up for total muscle annihilation when the two of them became friends, and yet it is one of the most frequent consequences of a pissed off Katniss.

 

“Are you going to tell me why I’m currently contemplating peeing in a bottle instead of walking to the bathroom?”

 

She decides best friends know too much.

 

“Nope,” popping the ‘p’ of that word feels like just about the most energy she muster for one movement.

 

He rolls his eyes.

 

“Then we are marathoning this until Netflix decides we need a life. And then you are organising dinner. Pizza is my recommendation but a homecooked meal would make it easier for me to forgive you.”

 

She can suffer that much for him.

 

––––

 

She thinks Cinna might be a mind reader. She’s not a hundred percent certain. Just ninety-nine.

 

The first thing he says to her on Wednesday morning - two very tense days later - is: “Whatever that boy did to anger you, I kindly request that you don’t kill my dancers before you forgive him.”

 

She glares, “I think you have me confused with someone capable of human emotion.”

 

The soft smile that appears on his face makes her realise that the man is actually capable of annoying her. Well, nobody’s perfect.

 

“I would ask you to tell me about it, but I’m worried you might punch me if I do,” he pushes the sugar across the table towards her… Damn considerate people.

 

“I just…” she hesitates, talking about these things is not something she’s ever really done, “I’m an idiot.”

 

Cinna brushes the napkin over his lips after she says the words and she’s sure it’s to cover a laugh.

 

“What makes you say that?”

 

The words are calm, even. She narrows her eyes at him. They end up in some kind of stand off for the next few minutes while the desires to vent and to ignore the issue war inside of her.

 

“I guess I feel like an idiot for thinking he could actually want me,” she has to look away from him at that point, picks at the dirt under her fingernails.

 

“What makes you think he doesn’t?”

 

He’s exactly the voice of reason Katniss doesn’t feel like listening to right now. Hope is not what she needs or wants. She needs to move on.

 

“Look, it’s obvious alright? It’s fine I get I’m no prima ballerina,” whatever it is she manages to put in her tone or her face, Cinna relents. There’s no point to pushing this issue. No point in obsessing over something that’s already done.

 

“I’ll be nicer to your dancers, too.”

 

Cinna sighs, takes a lengthy sip from his coffee, “Just know, I’m betting on you, Katniss. But I can’t be the only one, I need you to bet with me, too.”

 

––––

 

“Five, six, seven, eight!”

 

The music pounds out of the speakers. The heavy bass of it vibrates across the windows, the floorboards.

 

She feels it in her bones as she moves, closes her eyes and swears her body is part made of music.

 

But then she opens her eyes, sees the stiff lines of the ballet dancer, too proud and proper. She knows she promised Cinna she’d be kinder, gentler. Peeta still hasn’t been able to hold her gaze for more than three hundredths of a second. But fuck this. They just aren’t _getting it._

 

“Stop! Everybody stop!”

 

Gale looks at her with wide eyes from the front of the room.

 

She stares around the room, feels the weight of twenty pairs of eyes.

 

“Y’all are going to pack your bags and come with me,” no one moves, “Now.”

 

It’s only when she’s outside with this gaggle of dancers that she realises she’s not exactly certain her plan is going to work.

 

But then she pulls out her phone, makes a call, and knows she’s doing the right thing.

 

–

 

“Who wants a sugar cube before we start?”

 

She almost laughs at the expressions on the ballerinas’ faces. She wonders how many years it’s been since any of them even looked at sugar.

 

Finnick actually does laugh and sends them all to the back of the room, “Here, you are beginners. Watch and learn. Except you Katniss, I want you as close as possible.”

 

His usual class snickers and she rolls her eyes. She’s come to expect a certain level of flirty banter from Finnick and a part of her can’t help but feel a little warm that she’s still his pick amongst a sea of lithe ballet dancers.   


From the corner of eye she catches Peeta gritting his teeth and - _god, she’s terrible_ \- but the warm feeling grows inside her.

 

She reaches a hand out and places it on the bronze adonis’ shoulder, laughs, throws her braid over her shoulder. Fuck, she disgusts herself.

 

But then class starts and she doesn’t have room to think about anything else. Finnick makes her laugh and laugh as he shows off in his high heeled boots and when he almost kicks off Annie’s nose she worries Cinna might actually kill her. But the redhead’s laugh peels across the room and it takes the entire class the entire length of a song to calm down again.

 

They start to loosen up. No pressure. Peeta Mellark smiles and she thinks it might have actually been directed at her and yep, that’s her insides doing the weird flip-flop thing she’s come to hate.

 

Finnick mixes up the groups when they perform, half regulars, half new-comers. She films from the front of the room on her phone because she wants them all to be able to see this. It’s happening. They’re getting it. She can’t stop smiling and whooping and she even kicks off her shoes to throw at them at one point.

 

After, she leaves the changing rooms, the skin of her face is tight and fresh after splashing it with water. Peeta exits just across from her and she places a hand on her chest to catch her heart as it tries to beat its way out.

 

“That was amazing,” he says, ducks his head, looks down at her through his ungodly lashes.

 

“I figured you guys just needed to change things up a bit.”

 

A silence settles over them and she wonders if it’s obvious, the way her mind wars, if it shows on her face.

 

He leans forward. A door slams. She backs away, “I’m sorry,” she says, crosses her arms over her chest, smiles at the person who walks through the change room door.

 

When she looks back at Peeta she can’t tell what’s on his face. Regret? Relief that they were stopped? It confuses her. _He_ confuses her.

 

“I’ll see you in class tomorrow,” it’s curt and hurtful but she doesn’t care. She hates feeling confused, hates being dicked around. Too hot and cold for her, she thinks, too much and too little. She doesn’t need this. Doesn’t want this.

 

––––

 

“This is the most important scene in the show!”

 

Katniss rolls her eyes, she never picked Gale for a romantic, but here he is critically analysing every square inch of ‘the love scene’.

 

She wonders what she’s being punished for - not calling her mother enough? It’s been two hours of her and Gale trying to get Peeta and Madge to fake intimacy and passion with dance. The sky is dark outside, street lights filter through the wide glass windows.

 

“Try again, from the beginning,” Gale sinks into a crouch, fingers linked across his mouth.

 

The music starts, a series of syncopated drum beats, synth pulsing quietly, this scene is about the dancing: the way they move against each other, the tension of wanting against the fear of being caught. It’s one of the few scenes where the styles are intertwined - a union.

 

But they’re holding back and everyone in the room can feel it. Madge bites her lip as Peeta skims his hands down her sides, looks as if she’d rather be anywhere else. Peeta almost grimaces when she slides her body across his. The movements are, in a way, perfect, but they lack energy, believability.

 

Gale grunts and points at the two ‘lovers’ to stand on the sidelines.

 

He tugs at Katniss’ hand and for a moment she’s terrified because it’s been years since she did ballet. One look in Gale’s eyes though tells her that’s not what’s needed right now.

 

The music starts again. He grips her hips, looks her in the eyes, it’s almost feral.

 

“We’re dancers,” he growls out the words as they start to move. She lets go here, lets him control her body, takes control when it’s her turn.

 

“Every move we make, every position should remind the audience of your body, the physicality of it, the control you have over it,” he tugs her back against his chest and she almost flops against it, his lips move across her neck.

 

When she opens her eyes, Peeta is staring at them, something hard in his expression.

 

She feels Gale’s hands, big and strong, slither down her sides and she shuts her eyes, moans into the air.

 

She’s pulled into the air, wraps her legs around his waist, “Can your body do this?”

 

She falls backwards, her legs and her core and his hands on her ass holding her body outwards as Gale practically fucks her mid air, grinds his hips against hers.

 

“Does your body move like this over another’s?”

 

She leaps off him in some kind of elegant back flip, the music starts to build towards its climax.

 

He grabs for her again, pulls her front against his, “This is a dance your body already knows, the most instinctual of all,” he tugs at her hair, exposes her neck, her body. She lifts a leg up, over his shoulder, has to stand on her tip toes.

 

The music peaks, they both grunt with the effort of the moves, “And I’m still going to have to fucking teach it to you.”

 

When Katniss looks up, Gale is staring down at Peeta, the harshness of his words lighting sparks in the air. Peeta is only looking at her, at the expression on her face.

 

“The two of you need to figure whatever the fuck it is out or get over it,” Gale reaches for Madge, “We’ll leave you to it.”

 

The music ends with Gale’s abrupt exit leaving them with only the sounds of heavy breathing.

 

She looks up at him again. He hasn’t stopped staring at her, blue irises rimming fat black pupils. There’s something in his gaze that scares her.

 

“Dance with me,” the words come out hoarse. He nods, strides towards her.

 

“No music.”

 

They work through it slow at first, and she thinks this is a very particular and cruel torture designed just for her.

 

His fingers hover somewhere over her waist, she feels the heat of them as the skim across her skin, hardly a touch. The outward force of his breath is felt against her back as his stomach clenches, on her neck as the air skitters across it. Goosebumps dance along the surface her skin.

 

“You’re trying too hard,” she grits her teeth as she spins away from him, “and not hard enough,” when she’s close again and he can barely hold his palm against her skin.

 

“Look at me,” he growls as he tugs her front against his, wraps her legs around his hips.

 

She does, something she wishes were hatred but is probably desire clouds her eyes.

 

“You have to mean it, Peeta, you have to pretend like you actually _want_ to do this with me.”

 

He grips her to him with that, some line apparently crossed.

 

“I don’t have to pretend, Katniss,” he tugs at her hips, she can feel him hard under his grey tracksuit pants, “This is real, for me.”

 

She grits her teeth and pushes against him, claws at his back as she slides down his body.

 

“You’re lying,” the words catch in her throat, unwillingly vulnerable.

 

His lips skim across her collarbone, “I’ve wanted you for over a decade.”

 

The automatic lights flick off leaving their bodies illuminated only by the yellow light of the street lamps.

 

She moans, “Then why did you go cold on me?”

 

He turns her, back against chest, cradles her ankle in his palm to lift her leg high in the air. He trails his fingers down the length of her leg, holds her gaze in the mirror as he does it.

 

“That,” he murmurs into her ear as the tips graze the sensitive skin of her thigh, “That look on your face right now.”

 

He presses a kiss to the juncture of her neck and shoulder, flicks his tongue across the goosebumps, “I didn’t get to see that.”

 

He spins her, one hand moving to cup the back of her head, the thumb of the other teases the plump curve of her bottom lip, “I felt like I’d disrespected you, just fucking you in some back alley.”

 

The dance is forgotten now. She feels frozen under the heat of his gaze - wide eyed and wanting.

 

“What if I want you to disrespect me again?”

 

They meet somewhere in the middle, her reaching up on tiptoes, his hands sinking in the dark mess of her hair to pull her closer.

 

His tongue sweeps out to part her lips, traces the line of her teeth. She gasps on their shared breaths, feels dizzy but isn’t sure if it’s the lack of oxygen or the feel of Peeta Mellark on her skin.

 

She tugs at the hem of his t-shirt, desperate to feel more of him, see more of him.

 

It gives him a chance to pull away from her magnetic eyes, lips, tongue, “I want more than this.”

 

She almost has to lip-read because of the blood rushing past her ears, “Okay,” she says.

 

He sinks to his knees in front of her, tucks his fingers into her leggings, her underpants and draws them down, kissing skin as it’s exposed. Then he’s laying back on the hard floors, she winces at the sight, is tempted to tell him they should move somewhere else, but he grips her hips and tugs her hips over his mouth.

 

“Oh,” she moans at the first flick of his tongue over her slit, long and languid.

 

“Oh,” the sound is drawn out, she can hardly remember what words are as he sucks her clit into his mouth. His tongue swirls over it, high pressure but slow. She’s writhing over him, knees burning where they press into the floor but when two fingers slip inside her she hardly notices the pain. They curl forward. She feels like screaming.

 

Pleasure twists inside her, pulsing and luscious and she’s starting to feel a bit delirious.

 

She has to reach back, steady herself on his abs as he starts to move faster, harder. She can’t contain the sounds that escape her, high pitched and surely embarrassing but this man makes her feel a certain kind of way and damn does she want him to know it.

 

When she looks down it’s like he’s drowning in her, mouth smothered, her wetness shining on his cheeks, blond hair matted against his forehead. She loves it.

 

She comes with a shout, sags forward onto her elbows. She feels his laughter on her belly.

 

“Was that disrespectful enough?”

 

She lets him drag her down his body, can’t find the energy to laugh but rewards him with a lopsided, lazy kiss.

 

“Not even close,” she whispers into his ear, starts to roll her hips over the length of his erection.

 

He looks up at her, bites his lip, “I don’t have a condom.”

 

She raises an eyebrow, “Then I guess we’d better get out of here.”

 

–

 

His apartment isn’t far from the academy, a small little basement studio of some nice-looking brownstone.

 

“A family lives upstairs,” he says as he struggles to guide her down the steps, her lips attached to his neck, “So we’ll have to be quiet.”

 

“No promises,” she nips at his pale skin, loves the way it turns red so easily.

 

He pokes her side and she lurches with a laugh, “If you’re naughty I might just have to punish you.”

 

“Mmm,” she moans into his ear, wraps her arms around his neck as he tries to unlock the front door, “I think I’m feeling naughty.”

 

He drops his head to her shoulder and groans, “Three months of wasted time.”

 

“Then I guess we’ll have to condense six months worth of sex into three.”

 

He looks in her eyes and she wonders if she said the wrong thing, there’s something pained in his expression.

 

It shifts before she can think too much about it, turns into something hungry, “Then there’s no time to waste with talking. Clothes off Everdeen, I want you naked and wet and in my bed for as many hours as humanly possible.”

 

––––

 

She’s woken at six a.m. with a text from Gale that contains far too much innuendo for that time of morning.

 

Peeta’s asleep beside her, sprawled on his back. The sheets have slipped low on his belly.

 

She takes her time to look at him, all lean muscle and pale skin. Being a ballet dancer, his chest is waxed to smooth perfection, not even the trail of hair from his belly button remains. She takes in the sharp angle of his jaw, the line of his nose. His eyelashes float over his cheekbones, long and golden.

 

The rise and fall of his chest draws her eyes downward, down, down…

 

She shifts over him as quiet as she can, tugs the sheet to expose him completely.

 

He murmurs something, his biceps flex beside his head.

 

She grips his cock in her hands - it’s hard already, she wonders if he’s dreaming about her - leans forward. Her hair tickles the inside of his thigh and he twitches.

 

With a long lick, she moves her tongue over the swollen, red head of him. He groans. She grips tighter.

 

“Mmph - Katniss?”

 

She looks up at him as she takes him fully into her mouth, his eyes are still hazy with the last remnants of sleep.

 

She sinks as low as she can, has to stop when he hits the back of her throat.

 

“Holy fuck,” he rises up on his elbows, falls back to the bed, reaches one hand down to tangle his fingers in her hair.

 

She starts to bob her head, swirls her tongue as she moves over him, uses her hands to grip the rest of him.

 

“You’re a dream,” he hisses, “A fucking dream.”

 

She moans on his dick and he can’t help but thrust his hips in response.

 

With one hand she grips his balls, uses a fingertip to press on that little patch of skin just behind them. His eyes roll back at the motion and she feels pride swell within her.

 

He tugs at her head just as she can feel his thighs and balls tensing, can see the crush of his abs.

 

“I want to –”

 

“No,” he pulls her up and throws her down beside him on the bed, places a knee on each side of her hips and grips his cock in his hand, “This okay?”

 

She’s mute with the sight of watching him finish himself off, big and powerful over her, is entranced by the look on his face. She nods but he’s already pumping himself in his fist.

 

He comes on her stomach, her breasts. Looks down at her covered in him.

 

She never wants to leave this bed.

 

––––

 

Madge suggests some club in the Meatpacking District for the now very regular Friday dance nights.

  
“How exactly do you know all these places? You seem like far too much of a princess,” Katniss grumbles after they make it through the tedious process of gaining entry to a New York City club.

 

She flicks her blonde hair over her shoulder and winks at Katniss, “Maybe that’s exactly why I know all the hot spots.”

 

“I can’t believe you just said ‘hot spots’,” Gale jokes as he throws an arm around the blonde’s shoulder. She glares up at him and he smirks before dropping a kiss on her forehead, “At least you’re cute,” he mumbles before going for a decidedly more intimate kiss.

 

Katniss feels heat rising on her cheeks and has to look away. She thought she’d grow out of how uncomfortable public displays of affection make her feel, and yet…

 

Two warm hands curve over the tight, shiny material of her pants on her hips, a hot whisper in her ear: “How long do we have to stay here, Everdeen, your ass in these pants is doing things to me.”

 

She turns in his arms to shoot him a coy smile, traces a finger over his pec - just visible under the dark blue button up - his eyes darken, “We’re staying until I can’t walk anymore.”

 

Then she saunters off to the bar for her first gin and tonic of the night.

 

–

 

The music is pumping and she seriously regrets wearing pants because sweat but fuck if she hasn’t been able to let loose on a dancefloor like this in forever.

 

There’s enough alcohol running through her veins that at about the two a.m. mark she can’t stand to have Peeta’s hands anywhere but on her, PDA be damned.

 

The crush of people makes her feel very much alone with him as they move against each other, with each other. His hair is clinging to his forehead, curling at the edges in just the way she likes. She scrapes her fingernails across his scalp, draws him in for another heated kiss.

 

“Katniss,” he hisses as he pulls away, “God, I want to do this with you forever.”

 

Two months left of forever, she thinks, gut twisting. Her fingers become more desperate, tug him into her.

 

“Time to leave,” she mumbles, “Need you.” Kiss. “Now.”

 

–––

 

Waking up naked and next to Peeta is one of her favourite things. She decides this one morning with his fingers deep inside her and his erection pressing into the small of her back. He traces lazy circles around her breasts.

 

“Better than coffee,” she gasps when he starts to nip at her earlobe, “So much more awake.”

 

“I’m doing something wrong then,” he mumbles as he starts to press against her clit with his thumb, “Isn’t great sex meant to be exhausting?”

 

“Mmmph,” she struggles to get words out, “Endorphins and exercise and shit, good for you - Ah! - but there’s always room for improvement.”

 

He tweaks her nipple and she laughs, “Oh, like that’s going to make me change my mind.”

 

Then he’s lifting her leg back and over his hip and he’s pushing inside of her and she has to remind herself how to breathe, “You’re a stubborn little brat.”

 

She nods against the pillow, twines his fingers with hers against her breastbone, “But at least I’m _your_ stubborn little brat.”

 

––––

 

Rue sends her a video via text. It’s of one of the teen classes performing a dance that the young girl choreographed. At the end she flips the camera around and there’s a smile on her face that hits hard somewhere deep inside Katniss.

 

“I did it!” The voice is high pitched and squeaky and are those braces? “Miss you so much, Katniss, but I can’t wait to teach this to you when you get back!”

 

She laughs but there’s a tightness in her chest, a burning push right against her breastbone, she rubs at it with the heel of her palm.

 

“What was that?” Peeta asks through foamy toothpaste, poking his head out of the small bathroom in his apartment. He’s only wearing his briefs and she reminds herself to always pay attention to every moment Peeta isn’t fully dressed.

 

“Video from home,” she tries to keep the words light, but something about the word _home_ tastes weird in her mouth.

 

He nods his head, eyes wide, “Oh.”

 

She knows what she should do, what a grown up person capable of communicating emotions would do, but instead she hops out of the bed and strips, stalks right past Peeta and into the shower with a wink.

 

“Now are you going to help me get clean?”

 

––––

 

She’s lounging with Gale in the apartment. It’s not so much teaching anymore, the whole show is choreographed with only a month until show time. It’s just perfecting.

 

But god if perfecting doesn’t exhaust her.

 

Gale is smirking at his phone every two seconds from what she assumes is another text from Madge.

 

“Gale?”

 

She’s debating stuffing one of the cushions from the couch in her mouth before continuing with the line of questioning her brain has suddenly come up with, but the questioning look he shoots her over his phone after a few seconds too long of silence on her part means she knows he won’t drop it now.

 

“Um,” she picks up the remote and flicks mindlessly through channels before stopping on some top forty video hits, “What are you and Madge doing when we have to leave?”

 

Something that might be the first blush she’s ever seen on Gale’s cheeks seems to rise with the question, but he shakes it off quickly. Obviously he’s as unused to this with her as she is with him.

 

“Well, we’re going to end it.”

 

“Oh,” she’s not sure what she expected him to say.

 

“We both knew going in that I’d be leaving and so, yeah, I don’t think either of us have the time to put into a long distance relationship.”

 

She thinks of Peeta here, her life back in L.A. They seem practically incompatible. She tries to imagine waiting around every night for a phone call. It’s not her.

 

It’s not her at all.

 

––––

 

She dreams about him. Blond hair and golden eyelashes are haloed by light of the sun. He’s hovering somewhere that’s just out of reach. She tries - both arms stretched - but she can’t seem to grasp him. He’s smiling at her but the longer it takes her the more he starts to fade, starts to lose interest. He’s looking somewhere over her shoulder, at someone else. Her whole body goes cold as that other person moves through her. She feels her skin being torn apart. Watches some other person take his hand, disappear.

 

––––

 

Two weeks. That’s all she has left. She’s lounging in his flat on a Saturday morning wearing nothing but one of his button ups, dunking fresh croissants into her coffee.

 

The snow that started falling the day after Christmas has kept up a steady pace through to the new year. She fingers the chain circling her neck, Peeta’s christmas gift to her. It’s simple, just a single, perfect pearl on a silver chain. But she loves it.

 

Peeta walks in from the bathroom, ruffling his wet hair with a towel. As much as he’d never admit it he spends more time on his hair each morning than she does.

 

He smiles at her, soft and sweet, eyes crinkling in the corners, drops a kiss to the corner of her mouth.

 

“What do you want to do today?”

 

The first full rehearsal had been the day before and it had gone better than she could have hoped. Cinna treated her and Gale to a dinner where she’d had to actively avoid looking at the prices on the menu for fear of a heart attack.

 

A text from Madge had come just as they were leaving saying that Peeta was pretty drunk and he might need some help home.

 

“I’m not the one with the hangover, so maybe you should decide,” she smirks at him as he sits down across from her and takes a big gulp of her coffee.

 

He places it down and reaches across the table for her fingers. There’s something sad in the way he moves, melancholy clinging to length of his arms, fingers less nimble, almost weighed down by the weight of the sadness she tries to find in his face. He hides it too well.

 

“I just want to be with you,” he raises her hand and kisses the palm, “For as long as I can.”

 

She realises then that he knows, that he’s figured out what will be happening between them so very soon without her saying a word. It breaks her a little, she strokes the line of his jaw. He kisses her palm again and it feels so intimate, so precious. She cups the feeling of the kiss and places it on her breast bone.

 

“Okay.”

 

Because really, she’s never felt so loved, so understood.

 

––––

 

On opening night she’s torn between the very real urge to vomit in the pot plant or the desire to down as many glasses of champagne as she can get away with. She doesn’t think she’s ever been to such a fancy event. Doesn’t think there’s ever been so much pressure on her.

 

The dancers are all backstage warming up and she wishes she could be with them. Every conversation she has with the sponsors and the season ticket holders doesn’t register. She laughs and smiles but the entire show plays on a loop in her head and she picks it all to pieces.

 

Cinna places a hand low on her back, warm and steady.

 

“Katniss,” he smiles, “The show is perfect. You should relax.”

 

She smiles but she feels her lips trembling, “I can’t believe we’re here.”

 

Cinna tips his champagne flute against hers in a cheers, “I am so proud of you.”

 

He kisses her cheek and she has to squeeze her eyes shut to keep the tears at bay.

 

“Now let’s take our seats.” 

 

––––

 

She’s never felt as exhilarated, as wonderful, as during the moment when the audience rise from their seats to give a standing ovation at the end of the show.

 

She can’t hold back the emotion that has been pounding in her chest for the past two hours as she watched her dancers on stage. It was perfect.

 

She clutches Gale’s hand beside her, desperate to feel grounded, certain she’ll float away.

 

When Peeta appears back on stage - post-dramatic death that she’ll never admit had her in tears - his eyes are on her the whole time. The audience love him. She wishes she could stalk up on that stage and rip his clothes off right where he stands.

 

He blows a kiss and she laughs.

 

–

 

Backstage is abuzz with dancers laughing and putting away their costumes, wiping stage make up from their faces. Every one of them hugs her and congratulates as her as she makes her way through but there’s someone very specific she needs to see before it’s too late.

 

She knocks on his change room door and bounces on her toes in anticipation - seconds feel as though they’re dragging into minutes and minutes feel as if they aren’t long enough.

 

He opens the door and she pounces, legs around his waist, hands deep in his hair. He barely manages to get the door shut behind her.

 

He pants into her mouth, “Why are you leaving?”

 

“Don’t, Peeta,” she drops her forehead against his shoulder, “Not now.”

 

His face crumples but he nods, kisses her.

 

Her dress is long, thin black straps and a loose, draping silk that clings and exposes. It’s on the floor before he even really gets a chance to appreciate it.

 

He kisses her breasts. She tugs his hips against hers, palms his erection over the tights that really need to be gone.

 

“Naked,” she gasps as he presses his fingers into her clit through her lacy underpants, “I need you naked.”

 

“When are you flying again?” He asks it but she knows the date and time have been etched into his mind since she booked her tickets.

 

“Three hours, so I need to be there in two.”

 

She doesn’t want to talk about this so she drops to her knees in front of him and gets him as naked as she’s been begging for. She steadies herself with her hands on his hips, he falls back onto the chair.

 

A long lick, base to tip. She takes him in her mouth. She runs her hands across his chest, traces the lines of his abs.

 

“C’mere,” he says after only a moment, “I need you here.”

 

She nods and crawls onto his lap. There’s just enough room for her to place her knees on either side of his legs.

 

She sinks down onto him.

 

“Katniss,” he says kissing the hollow of her neck. Their breaths come out short and harsh but she wants this to last as long as she can make it. She rolls her hips against his, moans when her clit presses against his belly.

 

His hands trace the long curve of her back, the indentations of her spine.

 

“I love you,” he breathes the words, “I just need you to know that, okay?”

 

She rests her forehead against his. Kisses him.

 

“Okay.”

 

“I love you,” he repeats and she grips his shoulders.

 

She doesn’t come, there’s too much emotion circling through her, the temptation to cry is too strong. But after he does they fall against each other, skin sticky. Naked for the last time.

 

“If you’re ever in L.A. come and visit me, okay?”

 

He looks her in the eye, the corners of his lips turn down, “Okay.”

 

“You were amazing tonight,” she whispers, “Do it like that every night and you’ll be a star in no time.”

 

He nods, “Thank you, Katniss.”

 

She stands up, reaches for a tissue but he takes it from her, wipes the wetness away from the inside of her thighs with the attention he usually reserves for learning new moves.

 

She puts her dress back on, fixes her hair in the mirror.

 

He gets dressed too.

 

They spend the whole time touching, thigh against hip, pinky to pinky.

 

When she finally has to leave he kisses her so hard that she wonders if her lips will bruise.

 

“I love you, too.”

 

–

 

_Peeta Mellark sent you a friend request._

 

It’s stupid, but this is the thing that makes her cry once she lands back in California and turns off the airplane mode on her phone.

 

She opens the app and clicks accept.

 

As much as it hurts right now, she doesn’t want to forget him.

 

––––

 

_One year later_

 

_“Hey Katniss! Hope you’re doing well. I saw a video on youtube from your studio and it looks amazing! I’ve been going to Finnick’s classes every now and again but I definitely think my hip hop needs work before I’m ready for something like that haha. I’m in a performance that starts in a few weeks and I wanted to invite you to the opening. I know we haven’t spoken in a while but I’d love for you to be there. Pure classical ballet this time so I know it’s not really your thing. If you’d like to come let me know and I’ll make sure there’s a ticket for you to the gala. Hope to see you there. Love, Peeta”_

 

She reads the message at least ten times. It’s got a level of awkwardness that makes her imagine Peeta sitting at his computer trying to figure out if he should send it or not, backspacing and rewriting and finally hitting send with anxiety pounding in his chest.

 

Her studio is doing well. Doing the performance with Cinna gave her a Gale a certain level of fame amongst the dance community that they hadn’t quite expected.

 

She makes a decision before she can convince herself otherwise: _“Would love to go. What’s the exact date? I’ll book my tickets tonight. Thanks for thinking of me Peeta.”_

 

Her heart thuds in her chest at the prospect of seeing him again. It pains her to think about the number of times she’s stalked his facebook. She thinks she knows every photo he’s ever been tagged in.

 

Her favourite is one of the two of them, playing in the snow. It’s blurry and you can basically just see the smiles on their faces as she tries to shove snow down his jacket.

 

He replies within a few minutes and the ease seems to seep back into his words.

 

_“Would you like to get dinner after, just for a catch up?”_

 

She says yes, of course, but a part of her wonders if she really just wants to catch up.

 

––––

 

Cinna greets her at the entrance to the David H. Koch theatre and she feels deja vu washing over her.

 

“How is it possible for you to get even more stunning?”

 

She flushes and laughs, “I’ve missed having you around to compliment me, Cinna.”

 

“I’m glad that you came, it took a lot of convincing to get Peeta to invite you,” something flashes in his eyes and of course Cinna had a hand in making this happen.

 

“Well how could I refuse a principal of the NYCB?”

 

Cinna guides her to one of the waiters with their platters of hors d'oeuvres.

 

“In a way I hope you mean that. I think New York has missed you, Miss Everdeen,” he nods over her shoulder and she turns just in time to be ambushed by Madge.

 

“Katniss! I’m so glad you came,” a kiss on each cheek.

 

“It’s good to see you, Madge.”

 

The blonde smiles, reaches forward to touch the pearl that sits at the base of Katniss’s neck, “We’ve missed you.”

 

It’s only being here, surrounded by these people, that Katniss let’s herself realise exactly how much she’s missed New York too.

 

“I can’t wait for you to see this, Peeta’s been working so hard.”

 

–

 

She can tell. The muscles of his thighs ripple with every leap, hard muscles and technical beauty - it’s a display of mastery, a demonstration of the capabilities of the human body.

 

She is in awe of him as he moves across the stage.

 

He was right in that Classical Ballet hasn’t been her thing for a while. The hurt of rejection had made her resent the art for its rules and its boundaries. But watching him, she forgets all of that.

 

Madge twines her fingers with hers over the armrest.

 

“He’s beautiful,” Katniss whispers.

 

“He’s yours,” Madge replies.

 

––––

 

_10 years later_

 

“Peeta!” She shouts up the stairs, laughing as Teddy tugs on her leg so that she can keep helping him with his steps, “Do you have Poppy’s tutu? We need to leave soon if she’s going to make the warm ups!”

 

“We had an incident with your lipstick!” The shouted reply comes with an air of frustration that tells her she’d rather not ask anymore questions. She shakes her head with a smile.

 

“Alright Mr. Theodore, are you excited to watch your sister?” She reaches down to tug the little four year old onto her hip. He’s really far too big to be carried but she finds it hard to say no.

 

He nods, lips pursed tight. She has to laugh at the sight. Grey eyed, blond hair mussed, he’s a perfect little boy. Two wonderful children, she wonders how she got so lucky.

 

Peeta and Poppy walk down the stairs and the sight of the little girl’s pink tutu gives her a tight feeling in her chest.

 

“Alright Popsicle, let’s get this show on the road.”

 

Peeta takes her hand, kisses the palm, “Who ever knew you’d be a dance mom?”

 

“If you call me a dance mom one more time, let’s just say there’ll be no chance of you being a dad again.”

 

He kisses her sound on the lips and Teddy makes a gagging sound. She laughs and places a sloppy kiss on her son’s cheek.   
  
“Ew!” He swipes at the spot.

 

“Alright, alright,” Peeta takes Poppy’s hand in his free one, “Let’s go, family.”

 

 

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks go to Jessa. I love you. I love Prompts in Panem. I would never have started writing fanfiction if it weren’t for you and for this challenge. Every fic I’ve posted is thanks to you. Congratulations on all you have achieved. 
> 
> Also thank you to everyone who has ever read and commented or kudosed one of my fics. It's the best feeling, every time.


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